This Week
Monday Thirtieth anniversary of the student-led uprising at the Athens Polytechnic against the 1967-74 dictatorship on November 17, 1973. A protest march will be held from the National Technical University (formerly the Polytechnic) to the US Embassy in the afternoon. Streets will start closing from 2 p.m. – First Balkan and Black Sea Partnership 2003 conference opens at the Helexpo fairground in Thessaloniki. The conference is organized by the Inter-Balkan and Black Sea Center (DIPEK). To tomorrow. – Culture Ministry short-term employees begin a two-day strike, calling for permanent employment. To tomorrow. – Foreign Minister George Papandreou to attend EU foreign ministers’ meeting in Brussels. To tomorrow. EU enlargement and Iraq are on the agenda. – Agriculture Minister Giorgos Drys to attend EU agriculture ministers’ meeting in Brussels. – Representatives of the 10,000 workers in Greece’s tobacco sector to take part in European demonstration against EU tobacco policy in Brussels. – Defense Minister Yiannos Papantoniou attends troika meeting with NATO countries outside of the EU. – Admiral Sir Alan West, Britain’s navy chief, begins a two-day visit to Athens. To tomorrow. Tuesday 2004 state budget proposal to be presented to Parliament. – Croatian President Stipe Mesic pays an official visit to Greece. He will meet with President Costis Stephanopoulos and PM Costas Simitis. To Thursday. – Lawyers, notaries public and deeds office employees begin 48-hour nationwide strike, demanding the State pay 120 billion drachmas (352 million euros) into their social security fund. – State secondary school teachers’ union (OLME) stages a 48-hour strike over pay. To Wednesday. – Employees of the Public Power Corporation (GENOP-DEH) stage a 24-hour strike. – Photographer Spyros Meletzis, known for his work covering the Greek Resistance during World War II, is to be buried at Athens’s First Cemetery at public expense, at 3.30 p.m. – Defense Minister Papantoniou visits Zagreb, Croatia, for a meeting of Southeastern European defense ministers. – Greek Linguistic Heritage society holds a conference on «Timelessness of the Greek Language,» at the Athens Concert Hall. Tel. 210.884.7139. Wednesday Council of Europe’s deadline for Turkey to pay compensation to Turkish-Cypriot refugee Titina Loizidou or face sanctions. – Tour bus owners begin an open-ended strike demanding state subsidies. – Engineers at state services begin series of 24-hour strikes, every Wednesday till December 3, demanding more pay. Thursday National 24-hour strike by civil servants’ federation, ADEDY, demanding higher wages and protesting against part-time employment. At 12 noon they will hold a demonstration on Korai pedestrian street in central Athens. – State hospital doctors in Athens and Piraeus stage a 48-hour strike demanding more money, permanency and better working conditions. To Friday. Friday PM Simitis chairs a PASOK Central Committee meeting on the party’s ballots for the next election. – 44th Film Festival opens at the Olympion cinema in Thessaloniki. To November 30. Saturday Attica taxi drivers stage 24-hour strike, protesting at deadline to install receipt machines in their cabs. Sunday Annual commemoration of the destruction of the Gorgopotamos Bridge in central Greece by united resistance forces on November 25, 1942. At Gorgopotamos.
